Bart Stirling's Road to Success eBook

“I’ve got it,” he announced.
“No!—­he ripped off the end of the
parcel—­here’s a haul.”

Bart writhed, choked on the loose strangling filaments
of cotton, but could not utter a word.

“Give me that package!” cried the colonel.
“Stop! where are you going?”

Lem Wacker had bolted. The colonel stared in
marveling astonishment as his cohort sprang through
the open doorway. Bart had managed to wad the
cotton in his mouth into a compact wet mass, enabling
him to speak.

“Colonel Harrington!” he cried, “that
man has not got the package you were after. He
has instead stolen a money envelope for Martin & Company
containing fifteen thousand dollars in currency, and
is making off with it. Cut this rope instantly
that I may pursue him, or I give you my word that,
as a partner in his crime, rich as you are, and influential
as you are, you shall go to the State penitentiary.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

THIRTY SECONDS OF TWELVE

It was an exciting moment. Bart was intently
worked up, but he kept his head level. Everything
hung on the action of the next two minutes.

Whatever price the rich Colonel Harrington was paying
Lem Wacker for his cooeperation, it was not enough
to blind that individual to a realization of the fact
that accident had placed in Wacker’s grasp the
great haul of his life, and he was making off with
this fortune, leaving the colonel in the lurch.

The latter stood shaking like an aspen, his face the
color of chalk. Apparently he took in and believed
every word that Bart had spoken.

“I’m in a fix—­a terrible fix!”
he groaned. “This is dreadful—­dreadful!”

“Mend it, then!” cried Bart. “Quick!
if you have one spark of sense or manhood in you.
There’s a knife—­cut this rope.”

With quivering fingers Colonel Harrington took up
from the desk the office knife used for cutting string.
It was keen-bladed as a razor. Unsteady and bungling
as was his stroke, he severed the rope partly, and
Bart burst his bonds free.

“Stay here,” called out the young express
agent sharply. “I hold you responsible
for this office till I return!”

He dashed outside like a rocket, scanned the whole
roadway expanse, and darted for the freight yards
with the speed of the wind.

The electric arc lights were sparsely scattered, but
there was sufficient illumination for him to make
out a fugitive figure just crossing the broad roadway
towards the freight tracks.

It was Lem Wacker. A train of empty box freights
blocked his way. He stooped, made a diving scurry
under one of them, and was lost to view.

Bart ran as he had never run before. The train
cleared the tracks as he reached the spot where Wacker
had disappeared.

At that moment above the jangling, clumping activity
of the yards there arose on the night air one frightful,
piercing shriek.